Fancher And Rutherford Reading Summary

*After reading chapter 13 in the Fancher and Rutherford reading, I feel like Piaget’s work helped us better understand the cognitive development of children. I feel like the stages of development helps us better understand how children are able to think logically and critically. The stages state the way in which thinking develops. To me, it makes since because as a child I was unable to make my own decision about what would be the better outcome and what would be best for me. However, as I became older I was able to understand right from wrong and how something could be both beneficial and non-beneficial to me. The stages explain how we associate things over a period of time. Once we are able to associate these objects with different objects
based upon our experience then began to develop some type of thinking. For example, when I was a baby I had no idea about cooking and hot temperatures.
As I got older I learned not to touch the oven because it was hot and I could get burned. By the time I was 7 I knew that the oven was used to make food and it was very hot. At the age of 15 I knew that the oven had different temperatures which all ranged from hot to dangerously hot however, I knew how to control those different temperatures. I feel like my knowledge of the oven came from experience and watching others cook. If I were to start cooking at the age of 6, I wouldn’t have had a clear understanding of how to control the temperature of the oven. That’s why I agree with Piaget’s stages of development. The way in which I think today, is way better than the way I use to think when I was 18. I think that’s one of the reasons in which children and adults get trialed differently. When making decisions children don’t weigh out the pros and cons, whereas adults look at the outcome of the situation from different aspects because they don’t want to make the wrong decisions. So yes, as we get older our ability to think tends to grow more each
year.

*Honestly, I don’t know how I felt about chapter 14 of the Fancher and Rutherford reading. Like I’m okay with the whole computer programming and getting to the computer to think like a person, but I don’t feel like it’s possible for that to occur. Looking at computers today and how they work I don’t feel as though they operate like humans. I say this because, no matter how much technology advances, no computer program can make decisions and critically think like a human. There are sources that show you how to do it but now actually do it for you. Like there is no website out there that can write my paper for me based upon the way in which I think. However, when it comes to math that’s a different story, but even then I feel like the answers to online math problems comes from individual’s who took time out to come up with formulas, inputs and outputs that would work in solving math problems. For example most of the engines created by Babbage worked with polynomials. In my opinion, I just don’t think that computers or machines can actually think for us. I just think they can do simple things we can do but are just too lazy to do. I feel like the input and organization of it all still comes from the actual mind of a human. It’s only so much thinking and input a person can put into a program. I feel like we just summarize the process of things and present it in the shortest and simplest way possible, and then input it into a program. This just reminds me of programs such as hook on phonics and math websites. They are limited to certain things.
The two readings by Gardner kind of gave me a better understanding of the mind and artificial intelligence. In chapter 5 of the reading Gardner mentions that we have a limited capacity for intake and storage information. In the beginning of this section Gardner mentions Cherry’s idea of obtaining information from a noisy channel. I don’t know if this is the same or not but this experiment reminds me of a game I use to play as a child. The game was called telephone, a person would whisper a word or phrase into another person’s each and that person would have to repeat it into another person’s ear and so. The last person in the game would have to state what they heard. To me, I thought it was easier to interpret words rather than whole phrases. I know for me as the game went on I started to forget what the initial word or phrase was. This brought me to Broadbent’s idea of the intake of information. I feel like his flow chart basically stated that things we find information we grasps the important information and store it in long term memory but tend to forget the other little pieces of information that was a part of that important information. For example, in this class there are a lot of psychologists in which we learn about. However, we only to remember those who made major impacts on the field of psychology. Those who didn’t we store information about them in a limited time memory box and then when we are later asked about them we tend to forget some of the information regarding to their contributions. Chapter 6 started off talking about the ideas of artificial intelligence. So it seems that if a computer is given the right program it can be considered a mind. Gardner states in this chapter that there are some problems with strong and weak AI. Like I stated earlier, I don’t think AI can be programmed to think like a human. One of the problems mentioned in this chapter is whether or not AI is a scientific discipline. In my opinion, I don’t think it actually is because it’s not focusing on the actual human how their mind process information. It’s more of how the human can use technology to think like humans. Which I feel like goes way beyond any technology. To me, it just doesn’t relate to the work of psychology, I feel like AI is more related to Computer programming.
The thing that caught my attention in the reading by Searle is the title, can computers think?
Honestly, after reading this article I would say that I kind of had a change of heart about AI. The information presented in this reading caused me to think a little bit deeper on how computers work to process information. In the beginning of the reading Searle compared computers and computer programming to a mind and brain. At first I thought it didn’t make since but once it was explained in greater detail I was able to see how it was related. I think that computers can be taught how to process information like humans but I don’t think that it can fully think like humans. I feel like computers and its software are limited to human tendencies. I feel like the readings are focusing on basic human thinking whereas I am thinking about deep thought critical thinking. I think when it comes to basic things like typing, formulating answers, teaching a lesson or language, yes a computer can break down the words and meaning like we do, but I don’t think it can apply it to real life situations to fully understand how it applies. It’s like the thermostat explain, when it detects that its cold it turns on the heat and air when it’s hot. That’s something we think of doing when the weather changes. Another example is searching for things on YouTube. Once you find a video that is related to what you are looking for, they suggest a number of other videos in which you can look at if that one is not
the right one for you. To me, that seems like some form of thinking. It also reminds me of factories and how things are sorted and processed. Like certain machines bend the material and some move the material to a different area, like these machines are behaving in ways we behave we do work. Therefore, to a certain extent I do believe that computers can think.
After reading the article written by Leary, I know have realized that metaphors have played a huge role in my learning. In the psychology sense when I find people who work is similar in many ways I began to compare their work to those of others I don’t fully understand. By comparing the work of things I don’t quite understand to things I do know kinds of makes it easier for me to understand. In my opinion, I feel like much of the field of psychology is based upon metaphors. It’s the comparing and contrasting of individual’s ideas and thoughts. I feel like metaphors causes us to think deeply into the relationship of the two concepts. The thing with metaphors is after a while they began to lose their meaning as the concept changes; therefore the representation isn’t always going to be the same. I think they are really helpful when trying to understand things into simpler terms and meanings.